Cheap Future Thinking
Essay stub & concept
Cheap future thinking is living in your fantasies—of outcomes, of finish lines. Outcome-gazing.
There's nothing wrong with imagination, but chasing wishful fantasy is dangerous. It can warp your perceptions and desires and lead you toward things you don't actually want.
Future thinking is instant gratification. It's the junk food of your mind. It's so easy to just snap imagine the result of spending time on something. It costs nothing, while actually spending time is expensive. It's hard. It's much easier to fantasize.
Again, the problem is not with imagination. The problem is with the way you relate to your life and the way you spend your time.
Excess cheap future thinking trains your brain into instant gratification and dopamine-seeking (just as social media, sugar, etc.). It makes you avoid discomfort. It makes you resistant to working, to trying, and to doing things. It degrades your abillity to be present and engaged.
Because it doesn't feel as good to do something as to imagine having done it. It's not as sexy, or stimulating, or exciting. At least, it isn't when your brain has learned to habitually gratify itself with stimulating input. (You can unlearn this, of course. You can teach yourself how to enjoy working)
Fixating on outcomes distracts you from focusing on process. And process is what leads to outcomes.
Escaping Cheap Future Thinking
Today is all you get. Use future thinking and fantasy as inspiration, but then ground yourself in reality in front of you. Any outcomes you're pursuing, or considering pursuing—connect the dots from those imagined futures to today.
What would it look like to make that dream real? What would it take to realize that life? What would you need to do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next in order to do that?
When your answer to that question is one that excites you, you're on to something. When the day-to-day, repetitive work of doing something and slowly becoming better at it resonates, you've found a potential calling or pursuit.
Don't let cheap future thinking distract you from putting one foot in front of the other, walking down the path.